


Playing Make Believe

by PoorUnfortunateSoul



Series: OiHina Week 2016 [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Seasonal Affective Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 16:39:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7395262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoorUnfortunateSoul/pseuds/PoorUnfortunateSoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Oikawa told his family he thought he may be depressed, they told him he was playing make believe. </p><p>Hinata, on the other hand, whole heartedly believes him. </p><p>- <br/>OiHina Week Day Three: Comfort</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing Make Believe

 

 _It’s the most awful time of the year,_ Oikawa thinks, contradicting the voices of the carolers on his trek home.

 

     There’s snow _everywhere_ , it gets dark absurdly early, everyone is entirely too happy and faking kindness, and everything is _cold._ Oikawa grumpily uncurls his freeing fingers.

 

     There used to be a time when Oikawa adored this time of year. Everything was a chance for romance (or as Iwaizumi liked to call it, an excuse) as it was _obviously_ too cold to not snuggle up to someone.

 

     On top of that, Christmas was right around the corner, and he got to spend the few off days that his family wasn’t constantly running around, with them. He can’t pin-point the exact moment when Christmas became just another day, sucked of all of its excitement, but he _can_ pin-point the moment that he began dreading spending time with his family.

 

     He remembers coming to them four winters ago, entire body shaking, as he confessed that he thought that he may be depressed. He remembers his mom asking if he didn’t get something off of his Christmas list that he really wanted, and a few different extended family members muttering about how ungrateful he was.

 

     In his defense, he only really meant to tell his mom and dad; his extended family was supposed to be long gone by then, but couldn’t leave the house because of a snowstorm that had started over night.

 

     He desperately wishes that he would’ve remembered to check the weather app before leaving his room, or maybe just laughed off what he said as him wanting that new laptop he didn’t get. He hadn’t. Instead, he explained that it wasn’t like that, that he thought it was a mental illness thing that needed treated and not a fleeting emotions that would pass overnight.

 

     Actually, scratch that second thing. He just wishes he checked the weather app. His mother and father work hard, but they’re barely scrapping by; if he told his mom she’d messed up his Christmas because she couldn’t afford it would make her feel like the worst mother ever.

 

     She’s not the best, and Oikawa acknowledges that. She demanded to know why he repeatedly chose to be an embarrassment to the family after he asked to see a therapist. She skirts around his sexuality and pretends like he doesn’t kiss Iwaizumi to piss him off, or that he flirts with Kuroo at any chance he can get because Kuroo flirts back and, playful and platonic or not, Oikawa likes the attention.

 

     His mom isn’t the worst, either. She smiles fondly when he talks about his crushes, and plays his hair until he passes out when he lays his head on her lap after a particularly hard day. She watches movies with him when he can’t sleep, even if she’s seen it a million times, and makes him his favorite food and hot chocolate when he’s sad.

 

     She brings him home something small every time she goes shopping, and every time Oikawa knows that he’s being ungrateful and overall a brat, she never pulls the ‘I put clothes on your back and food on your table’ card that Kuroo’s mom loves playing. She supports his volleyball and comes to every game. She tells him that he’ll always be the number one setter to her, no matter if he was some natural, genius prodigy or not.

 

     She ruffles his hair and always tells him that she’s proud. She understands every teenage up and down, but he desperately, so much that it nearly makes every joint _ache_ , wishes that she’d at least try to understand this.

 

     Of the two of his parents, he was really hoping his mom would pull through and let him see someone. His dad was a long shot.

 

     He called mental illness a fraud, an excuse to be lazy. Oikawa, he deemed, was either trying to be lazy, making it up, looking for attention, or completely overacting to normal, everyday sadness. Maybe, he’d once mused, it was all three.

 

     He said that depression is the most over-diagnosed thing in teenagers; that it was all teenage angst, and that Oikawa would out-grow it.

 

     Last winter, when Oikawa wouldn’t let up about it, his dad had pulled up video after video about mental health professionals that revealed their profession to be a fraud; that mental illness _isn’t_ real, and that it’s actually the pills that mess with people brains so that they keep coming back to sessions.

 

     That anyone that says they have depression, or PTSD or OCD or anything was _wrong_ , because they _don’t exist._

 

     His father called him a baby that can’t handle life. His nickname for the past three years had been Romeo, and not because of his luck with the ladies.

 

     His mother was nowhere near as harsh, but she didn’t offer a solution either; just told him to get over it.

 

     He’s _trying,_ he’s trying, _he’s trying_ , but it doesn’t seem to be working. It’s been eight days since break started, and Oikawa had felt the weird, empty feeling climbing into his head since day two.

 

     Luckily, his parents had their 25th anniversary this year, and left for a romantic get-away. (Only after Oikawa had said didn’t care that they’d be gone for Christmas, of course.) Unluckily, being alone is doing nothing to help his state of mind.

 

     He doesn’t _understand._ He’d been trying so hard not to let the feeling take over him this year.

 

     He doesn’t _understand,_ because if mental health professionals say that mental illness isn’t real, then he _can’t be_ _depressed_ , so _why? Why_ can’t he snap himself out of it? _Why_ after sleeping non-stop for the past three days, does he feel so devoid of motivation? _Why_ hasn’t he left his bed in over three days, other than to use the bathroom, and _why_ doesn’t he care that he hasn’t moved?

 

     Normally, he cares too much about his appearance, but he hasn’t showered in four days, hasn’t done his hair or his normal face routine in seven (sometimes, he passes his hand over his face and can feel the pimples that are forming there) and he doesn’t even _care_.

 

     Thinking about it sends a wave of something unidentifiable through him, like he’s supposed to be feeling something, but he _can’t_ and he’s so scared and he doesn’t understand, because what he’s feeling _isn’t real_ and –

 

     “Oikawa?” a familiar voice calls through the house.

 

     Now, _that_ makes him shoot up in a panic, because oh, God his boyfriend can’t see him like this, their relationship is so _new_ , it’s so unstable and they need to find a better ground before they get this deep, or you know, preferably _never_ , and of all things is this _really_ what he’s choosing to worry about and –

 

     “Oikawa,” Hinata says again, closer this time, gentler, “breathe, with me, okay? You have to breathe.”

 

     _When did I stop breathing_ , Oikawa thinks, because he wasn’t aware of it, but now he is.

 

     His chest heaves, his heart feels like it’s trying to run from his chest, and breathing suddenly feels like entirely too much of an effort. However, his boyfriend is right, and he needs to breathe.

 

     Hinata’s close enough that Oikawa can feel his over-exaggerated breathes against his back, and the small puffs of air against his neck. The shorter of the two is counting softly in his ear, and breathing doesn’t seem so much like a chore anymore.

 

     “What was _that_?” Oikawa asks, bewildered.

 

     Hinata shifts into a deliberate position into a much more relaxed one, with Oikawa still pressed against his chest.

 

     “It was a panic attack,” Hinata explains, “They happen sometimes when anxiety builds up.”

 

     “Anxiety’s not real,” Oikawa says automatically, like a programmed robot.

 

     Hinata moves them again, so Oikawa can see him scrunch his eyebrows together.

 

     “Yeah, it is. Kenma has it. He has panic attacks a lot, actually; Kuroo is the one that taught me how to do that stuff. Though I don’t know if he learned because of Kenma, or because of his mom,” Hinata says, rambling off in that endearing way of his.

 

     “Depressions not real either,” Oikawa continues, ready to rattle off the entire list of things that aren’t real.  

 

     “Depression?” Hinata asks, grabbing a small handful of Oikawa’s hair and running his fingers through it. “Is that what this is?”

 

     Oikawa can barely find in it him to be disgusted when the grease in his hair is evident on Hinata’s fingers, when he lightly traces his finger around Oikawa’s pimples.

 

      “I didn’t know you had depression,” Hinata says with a frown. “I wish you would’ve told me, Suga and Yamaguchi gave me a lot of advice on how to support someone with it when we all found out that Kageyama has it.”

 

     “I don’t _have_ anything,” Oikawa says slowly, like he’s talking to a child, “because depression isn’t real.”

 

     Hinata’s face just gets more and more sad, and Oikawa’s stomach twists.

 

     _It’s my fault, and I don’t deserve him._

 

     “Who told you that?” Hinata asks, pulling Oikawa closer, holding him tighter, like he wants to protect him from the world.

 

     “Mental health professionals,” Oikawa says, like it’s obvious.

 

     Hinata huffs angrily and moves Oikawa to sit propped against the wall.

 

     “Stand up,” he says.

 

     “What?” Oikawa asks.

 

     “Stand up,” Hinata repeats, “and go shower.  You smell like death.”

 

     A beat passes.

 

     “I don’t want to,” Oikawa mutters, picking at his blanket.

 

     “Don’t want to,” Hinata echoes, “okay. Then, go eat. Your stomach has growled nine times since I got here.”

 

     Oikawa shrugs, “Not hungry.”

 

     “Then what, Oikawa, do you want to do?”

 

     The older of the two stares straight ahead. Hinata waits patiently, all for a shrug.

 

     “’Dunno,” Oikawa mumbles.

 

     “Depression kills motivation,” Hinata says, matter-of-factly.

 

     “It’s just another excuse to be lazy,” Oikawa says, and Hinata shivers when his voice comes out like his awful father impression. “Professionals say so.”

 

     “You,” Hinata says, “are the least lazy person I know.”

 

     Oikawa shrugs.

 

     “Oikawa, there are doctors, actual, _medically certified_ doctors, that think physical health is mind over matter. That you can will illnesses away, even terminal stuff, like cancer. They think anti-biotics are bullshit, and vaccines are made to make more people fork over cash when it gives their children learning disabilities, even when that’s been debunked hundreds of times.”

 

     Oikawa just shrugs again.

 

     “There are people that say that being trans is a choice, despite scientists saying that it’s a natural thing that happens that no one can control. There are people that say that the Earth is flat, despite human kind having been far away enough to know that it’s round. There are people, Oikawa, that will say that George Washington had wooden teeth, even after people will tell them what they were really made of.”

 

     Hinata gets up and starts pacing. His talking speeds up, and he starts to sound more like he’s giving a performance than trying to get through to someone.

 

     “There are people that still say that Napoleon was short, despite literally every history class I’ve ever taken telling me that he wasn’t nearly as small as we think. There are people that think our blood is blue until it comes past the surface of your skin. There are people that deny that cells are things, despite being able to see them.”

 

     Hinata climbs back into the bed and takes Oikawa face into his hands.

 

     He presses his forehead against Oikawa’s, and says, “There are people, Oikawa Tooru, that can look at evidence that something exists, and still claim that it doesn’t, that someone made up the numbers, or the research to fit their agenda. You can’t let people who think that depression isn’t real stop you from getting better, or seeking out help. I will _always_ help you, Oikawa, because whether or not depression is real, you’re suffering, and I’d be a shitty person if I claimed to care about you and then turned my back on that.”

 

     Oikawa’s eyes water, and he squeezes them shut. He doesn’t want to see Hinata’s face when they spill over.

 

     “It only happens during the winter, though,” Oikawa reasons, “maybe it really is just-“

 

     “Seasonal depression,” Hinata says.

 

     Oikawa blinks.

 

     “What?”

 

     “It’s a type of depression, I can’t remember the cause. I think it’s the shift in seasons and how that affects us, I think? I don’t know, but it’s pretty common for it to hit around the winter months, because everything’s kind of dark, and everyone else is happy and with family. It can be wonderful, but it can also be pretty lonely.”

 

     “So,” Oikawa says softly, “it’s a real thing?”

 

     Hinata smiles, and brushes his thumb along Oikawa’s cheekbone.

 

     “It’s a thing,” he confirms, and Oikawa cries in relief.

 

     _I’m not making it up,_ Oikawa thinks, relishing in the comfort Hinata offers, because Hinata _understands_ ; he doesn’t think he’s being lazy, or looking for an excuse to stop taking care of himself.

 

     He _validates_ his feelings, and in a bittersweet kind of way, the validation of his depression from someone he cares so much about is one of the best feelings he’s ever had.

 

     “On the plus side,” Hinata says when Oikawa’s all cried out, “I’ve heard that crying can help get rid of pimples.”

 

     Oikawa’s face quickly contorts to horror, and he shoves his head under his pillow.

 

     “Chibi-chan, no!” he cries, “Don’t look at me!”

 

     Hinata snorts and lays on top of his boyfriend.

 

     “Whatever you say, you beautiful pizza face, you,” Hinata teases.

 

     “Chibi-chan!” Oikawa gasps, whacking Hinata with a pillow.

 

     They both giggle and Hinata presses his nose against Oikawa’s neck.

 

     “Feeling any better?” he asks.

 

     Oikawa nods, “I am, actually. I don’t know how it’ll last, though, it’s supposed to be a long winter.”

 

     Hinata slowly pulls Oikawa’s lip from where he’d clamped it between his teeth, and running the pad of his thumb over the abused skin, he says, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not professional help, but I’m assuming that, considering what you told me about your parents, I’m the best you’ll have for a while, but I’ll my damn hardest, because I care about you, Oikawa.”

 

     Oikawa smiles at his boyfriend and says, “I care about you, too.”


End file.
